Resistance to antibiotics, which are used to treat bacterial infections associated with gastric disease, has more than doubled in 20 years, according to recent studies. This makes Helicobacter pylori infections more difficult to treat. This bacterium is responsible for infections of the digestive system.
Helicobacter pylori bacteria resistant to treatment
During the European Week of Gastrology in Barcelona, researchers presented research results that suggest that resistance to the antibiotics commonly used to treat Helicobacter pylori infections has increased dangerously in recent years. This bacterium has been linked to stomach ulcers, lymphoma and stomach cancer.
Researchers studied more than 1200 people from 18 European countries and found that resistance to the widely used antibiotic clarithromycin increased from 9,9 percent. in 1998 to 21,6 percent. in 2018. Similar increases were seen with levofloxacin and metronidazole.
Antibiotic resistance is increasingwhen the bacteria begin to tolerate pharmaceutical drugs that are designed to fight them. The WHO has highlighted the growing problem by calling for strategic efforts to combat this global health threat.
The highest rates of H. pylori resistance to clarithromycin were recorded in southern Italy (39,9%), Croatia (34,9%) and Greece (30%). Scientists believe that these high rates are largely related to overuse of antibiotics in common ailmentssuch as colds or flu.
Dangerous Helicobacter pylori
The bacterium Helicobacter pylori was discovered in 1982 by Australian scientists Barry J. Marshall and Robin Warren. Scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2005 for this discovery. Diseases resulting from Helicobacter pylori infection include: chronic gastritis, gastric or duodenal ulcer disease, gastric cancer, MALT lymphoma, Menetrier’s disease.
H. pylori can live in our body for many years and be asymptomatic. We often find out that we are infected when ulcers appear. H. pylori causes inflammation in the gastric mucosa and the body’s immune response. Symptoms indicating H. pylori infection include:
- constipation;
- abdominal pain;
- lack of appetite;
- heartburn;
- belching;
- nausea;
- epigastric pain.
Treatment of H. pylori infection consists of a combination of two antibiotics and a medicine that reduces gastric acid secretion. The most common antibiotics are amoxycycline, clarithomycin or metronidazole.
Why is antibiotic resistance so dangerous for this bacterium? As research leader Francis Ferguson explains, treatment options for H. pylori will be gradually reduced and ineffective if we do not develop them. With the reduced effectiveness of current therapies, the incidence of stomach cancer and other diseases such as peptic ulcer may be increased.
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